A look at the media world through the eyes of veteran Canadian TV columnist Eric Kohanik.

Friday, November 01, 2013

Anna Silk's begins fourth season of Lost Girl

ON SCREEN:
LOST GIRL
Showcase - Sundays, beginning Nov. 10

"Girl" Talk

Anna Silk Faces New Challenges as "Lost Girl" Begins Its Fourth Season

By Eric Kohanik

It's been a busy morning of pushing and
shoving for Lost Girl star Anna Silk.

Inside one of the buildings that once
housed the Lever Brothers factory near the Toronto waterfront, Silk,
who plays succubus/heroine Bo Dennis on the supernatural series, has
been locking horns on this late-September morning with guest star
Linda Hamilton, who returns as ruthless assassin Acacia in the 11th
episode of the upcoming season.

Lost Girl begins its fourth
season Nov. 10 on Showcase with the first of 13 new episodes.
Hamilton is part of a roster of guest stars that includes Kyle Schmid
(Copper, Blood Ties), George Takei (Star Trek), Mia
Kirshner (Defiance) and Ali Liebert (Bomb Girls).

When viewers last saw Bo, she had
mystically disappeared in one of several cliffhangers in last
season's finale. Bo's return will herald some big changes in the Fae
world.

“Bo is a key player in the Fae
world,” Silk says. “She doesn't even realize how key she is at
this point.”

The new season also brings big
challenges for Bo and those around her. But then, Bo has always had
to face big challenges.

“What's been so great about Bo from
the very beginning is that, no matter what, she has been a character
with so much room for growth,” Silk reflects during a break in
filming. “Because she started into this world brand new, she had
everything to learn and every skill to learn and develop. So, that
has been a real pleasure to play and a real gift.

“Our writers and creators come up
with great stuff every season to keep challenging her. But, man, she
never gets to rest! She always has to fight something.”

Exactly what Bo will fight is being
kept super-secret. “I'm under lock and key,” Silk confesses.
“Every season, I try to think of a handful of things I can say. And
usually I have a good handful. This season, I have, like, no handful.
And I've said this before in other interviews: The best way I can
describe it is that you have to take everything you know about Lost
Girl and turn it upside down, in every aspect of the show. With so
many cliffhangers at the end of last season, the way that people
might think it's going to go might not be the way it goes. Or it
might be.”

Silk has a much easier time talking
about changes that took place off screen between seasons, including
the birth of her son, Sam, in May. So, how is mommyhood?

“It's wonderful. It's really
wonderful. He's ridiculous,” Silk giggles as she shows a baby
picture on her smartphone. “He's really a dream baby, as I'm sure
every mother says about her baby. But he really is a pretty
easy-going babe. He's a happy boy.”

As for whether parenthood has affected
how she plays Bo, Silk isn't quite sure.

“I've always heard other actors say,
'Oh, being a parent changes how you perform.' And I think that's true
because it opens up your emotions,” she says. “It opens up your
heart in a broader sense. I feel I can't answer that question yet. I
feel I need more time before I can really answer how it's changed.
It's busier, for sure. And there's a lot more to balance, but it's
really great.”

Parenthood seems to be a good fit for
Silk, much in the way that Bo felt like a good fit to her right from
the start.

“It definitely fit right away because
I feel like, in my own life, I'm a bit of a late bloomer,” the
39-year-old New Brunswick native says. “And I've learned to kind of
be proud of that. But I feel like Bo was so new and I felt like I was
kind of new at taking on a leading role, and we kind of got to grow
together, so it has felt very organic right from the beginning.

“And I've definitely learned from
her. I'm way more tough in my own life now.”